Brand Saint John (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
runes_brand) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
goneawaycomms2020-12-15 06:51 pm
runes_brand) wrote in goneawaycomms2020-12-15 06:51 pm
Brand Saint John
●Brand Saint John
the fuck do you want
[video | audio | text]
●Brand Saint John
the fuck do you want
[video | audio | text]
no subject
South gives a lazy wave in return and pulls herself back up to her feet, calling over, "Hey, been... well, a while. You down to go a few rounds?"
She has time to make up for and as much as she genuinely enjoys sparring with her brother, as much as him knowing her so well keeps her on her toes, it's still not the same as sparring with someone else. She knows North just as well as he knows her, after all, and she doesn't want to risk getting sloppy.
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Brand approaches as she waves back and climbs to her feet.
"I could go a few rounds," he agreed. "What did you do, break something?"
Clearly she'd fixed something too, judging by how close her last match had been, and how much like her the other guy had looked.
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South snorts, rolling her shoulders. "Heh, yeah, actually. Broke my damn hand. Had it in a splint for a couple weeks, only got it off the other day. Hence..."
She gestures vaguely at the sparring mat where she and her very obvious twin had been sparring, then waves the previously broken hand. It's her dominant.
"I kinda maybe punched a bulkhead. Uh, twice. In a row." She coughs. "First time didn't break anything but yeah, second time was apparently pushing my luck and..."
She makes a bad cracking sound effect and shrugs. It was not her best moment, not at all. A very emotionally charged, stupid moment.
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Brand raises an eyebrow.
"So you broke your hand...and didn't see it as a reason to focus on your leg work for a couple weeks?" Tisk tisk, South. "Must be your thinkin' hand."
He's mostly just giving her shit, since she'd gone off and worked on repairing her relationship with her brother. But he's still giving her shit.
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South snorts something like an actual laugh. She rolls her eyes, gives him a Look and bounces back with an uncreative, "Oh fuck you," without losing the air of a laugh.
"I mean, yeah, you're fuckin' right, but fuck you anyway. Worst thing? Came down here with a spotter not long before I got it off and even did some one-arm pull-ups, I had shit I coulda done the whole time, I just..."
She waves vaguely. She just didn't. Thinking hand indeed.
"So now I have loads of time to make up for. Because yeah, I'm a fuckin' idiot." She can own it. Mostly. "Still got the edge on my brother though."
A casual aside, unlike the utterly stupid and awkward 'sibling' moment. Things are okay, now, and she knows Brand's not an idiot. He could put the pieces together, they're just not talking about the finished picture.
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Brand's resting bitch face cracks temporarily into a grin.
"Well," he says dryly. "That's what's important. Being able to kick your brother's ass. I suppose that you slacking off is all right in that case."
He shakes his head. "So am I supposed to play nice with you, or is your hand back up to par?"
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"See, you get it," she retorts, flashing a grin of her own.
She flexes her dominant hand.
"You think I'd want you 'playing nice' even if it wasn't?" she says, brow raised, then just shakes her head. What do you take her for, huh Brand? "But nah, it's fine now. Woulda been fine sooner and probably healed even better if their medical tech wasn't a fuckin' mockery, but whatever."
She's back to full functionality now and that's what matters. Won't stop her grumbling, but at least it wasn't even longer.
"Point is, I can still hit just as hard as before, no problem."
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"I'd have made fun of you even more if you did," Brand retorts. He rolls his eyes in agreement of Jorgmund's shoddy medical care.
"If they'd just let Rune have his sigils, he could have had it fixed in a couple hours, max."
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She snickers a little, "Wouldn't expect less. The day I ask someone to go fuckin' easy on me? Someone needs to get my head checked."
She cocks her head slightly, tightening her wraps and falling into an easy stance.
"Magic stuff, right?" She's been here long enough now, seen and heard enough, to get from a word like 'sigil' to 'universe with supernatural bullshit'. "You're telling me that partner of yours has healing magic and they won't let him have the shit he needs for it? God their bullshit makes less sense every day."
She knows Rune's face by now, vaguely at least; from the network the night the babadon't shit went down, to catching sight of him around the training floor today, between rounds with North. The guy Brand's been protecting his whole life.
If he has magic, she almost wonders why he needs protecting so fiercely, but she knows that someone's ability to defend themself doesn't make a difference when someone cares that deeply. God knows it's never stopped North taking bullets for her.
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He doesn't know if they know about Rune's Exodus spell. That would be a good reason to keep Rune's sigils from him, except they're supposedly giving them back when Rune goes on a mission, and Rune could stash Exodus then and use it when he came back -- if he were suicidal, which he isn't.
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"Ugh, they really think we're all idiots with death wishes or some shit. Like, they could drop us all in a second if we tried something stupid, but we still have to get through shit like demon cupids without even salt pellet guns."
It's ridiculous. Much as she wants out of here, even South knows that blasting their way out wouldn't work so long as they have these damn shock collars in. It's not like she expects them to hand them a free arsenal, but things attack the rig, people get injured, and they won't even give them the basics to handle it.
"It's fucking insulting, honestly. I've done a lot of shit to survive, sure the same can be said of the lot of us; we have basic fucking self-preservation instincts."
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"They're either stupid or malicious to the point of self-sabotage, and I don't fucking know which yet," Brand agrees. Possibly some combination of the two. It doesn't chance the pain-in-the-ass results, but it does change their approach to getting out of here.
"So, we gonna spar or just keep complaning?"
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"Could be both. Incompetence and maliciousness is one hell of a fucking combo," South says, and if it sounds like it comes from experience, well, maybe it does. Ugh, Project Freelancer was a shitshow...
She shakes her head and the thought away with it, stance tightening to something more ready to actually get into action, beckoning with one hand. Time to get to it. She really does have time to make up for.
"Yeah, alright, c'mon."
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It's nice to get back to this. He's not going to admit he kind of missed it though, that would be telling.
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South doesn't hold back an inch, either; despite signs, obvious to someone like Brand who's trained for this, that she needs to work back up the strength in her dominant hand, she puts as much power behind her hits as she ever did.
There's a fresh energy to her, too. There's less bitter rage behind her than there was before and she's thinking clearer, for it. She still sometimes sets up an attack intended for someone to follow, but she knows that's an issue, and she doesn't seem as annoyed at herself every time she does it, now, she just corrects for it.
It does feel good to do this again. To go toe-to-toe with someone who can match her without worrying about anything else but the fight.
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It's nice to see the change in South though. She's more present, less up in her own head. He doesn't have anything to do with it, it was something she worked through on her own (with her brother, certainly), but he knows how hard it is to drag yourself out of that mindset. Maybe he'll say something about it after they're done.
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South catches the switch in tactics and there's actually a flash of a satisfied smirk. That's something he brother would never do, even in a fight with no consequences. He's always been a little too soft on her. It made training herself back up to use her fucked up knee—a much older injury now only noticeable in rare moments where she over-extends—a nightmare. That big dumbass, she thinks with all affection.
Brand has no such issue and that's a damn nice change of pace.
Within a couple of rounds of the change, she's starting to figure out ways around the weakness. By the time they start to ease their way back down, she's compensating enough that exploiting it isn't as easy as it was at the start.
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"Feeling less rusty yet?" Brand asks as the two of them move into the cool-down portion of their match. "Thinking hand still working for you?"
Oh yeah, that's a thing now, South.
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South rolls her eyes dramatically. Of course that's a thing now, goddammit. She'd absolutely do the same thing if she was Brand, though, so she can't even say shit about it.
"It's working fine, asshole," she retorts with absolutely no venom, shaking her head. "Or, well, now it is. Sure keeping your fuckin' word about not pulling your punches."
At which she obviously doesn't sound at all annoyed, it's actually closer to grateful.
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"What would the point of that be? The people trying to beat the shit out of you aren't gonna pull their punches," Brand says with a shrug. "Everyone's got to learn to fight injured sooner or later. Probably ought to break out some blindfolds again soon, for good fucking measure."
...That could be fun, actually.
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"Tell that to my brother," she says with a snort, shaking her head. He really is a good fighter, but he really has always been too damn soft on her, too, even when she tells him not to be. "Blindfolds, that'd be in case of losing vision or visibility, yeah? Man, I haven't done situational training like that in a long time."
Spending time on the run sure cuts down your training opportunities beyond the basics.
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He shrugs, rolling his shoulders. "Losing vision or visibility, another angle on situational awareness, things like that. Sometimes my sparring partner is being sulky and needs an extra challenge to fucking focus. Sometimes it's just fun."
Brand's got a weird idea of 'fun', but South probably knew that already.
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"The day he listens to anyone telling him not to be soft on me would probably be a sign of the fuckin' end times. He's a dumbass."
Though the mental image of Brand trying is actually kind of hilarious. North's used to waving her off, but she's not sure if he'd be able to use the same tactics of dad-level patronisation as a method of avoidance against Brand, who seems like he'd have no patience for that shit off anyone let alone a stranger.
"Let me guess, you have a whole fuckin' list of special training shit just like that to keep people on their toes and just for fun."
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"Of course I've got a fucking list. Do you have any idea how fucking annoying teenagers are when you don't give them something to do with all that energy?"
He grabs his comm and waggles it at her.
"And I'm gonna do it," he warns her with a flash of a grin. "I'll call your brother and tell him he needs to get fucking serious about kicking your ass. Last chance to stop me."
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Her brow raises and she's half way to asking 'teenagers?', her mouth open and everything, when he waggles his comm and her brief confusion about if the guy somehow has teenagers himself or if he's just training a class of them or something is completely forgotten.
"...fuck, I feel like I should fuckin' stop you, but also, this could be hilarious."
Someone besides her calling North on literally any of his shit, big or small, isn't exactly a thing that happens often, either.
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